Just a few decades ago, teenagers couldn’t wait to leave school and start saving for a house and enjoying their independence. But thanks to a generational shift, more young adults today are choosing to stay at home longer and live off funding from the “bank of Mum and Dad”, a social researcher has warned.
Mark McCrindle appeared on 3AW radio to reveal the startling differences in society today, as people spend longer in education, put off marriage and kids and even choose to live with their parents for extended periods of time before finally setting up their own “independence”.
“Life stages have changed so we’ve got more younger people than ever, not only finishing school, but going on to tertiary study,” McCrindle told host Tom Elliott. “They’re being at home longer… But because of that they’re getting married later, they’re starting their own families later. It’s all changed in a pretty short period of time.”
Last year, statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that more than half of Australian adults aged from 18 to 24 are still living at home with their parents.
Meanwhile, a previous study by population consultancy .id found the proportion of 20 to 24-year-olds living with parents grew from 41.4 per cent to 43.4 per cent between 2011 and 2016. For 25 to 29-year-olds, it increased from 15.7 per cent to 17 per cent.
Asked if these young adults living at home longer actually benefits either party,McCrindle said: “It certainly comes with unintended consequences. The goal of adolescence is to move people from dependent to independent as they launch out as adults.
“If we institutionalise adolescence, if they stay too long at home, looked after, funded by others, on the education conveyor-belt, it can remove their own sense of agency and ability to take charge of their own life. That dependency it can create can be a challenge.”
He said he believes it has changed “particularly in the last generation”, but added that there are a number of other contributing factors in recent years such as rising house prices and huge debts for young adults starting out on their own, that have made it harder for them to leave straight after their secondary or tertiary education comes to an end.
While staying at home may seem financially beneficial, Mark said many young adults simply spend what they do save on going out with friends or travelling. While a lot of people in past generations will have been paying off mortgages or rent in their twenties, and “forced into that savings vehicle”, more now are “living off the bank of Mum and Dad” which can lead to you getting into a spiral of getting used to disposable income, without anything at the end of it to show for it.